LION’S MOUND, BELGIUM CONSERVATION

LOCATION
The Lion's Mound is a large conical artificial hill located in Wallonia in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud,
Belgium. King William I of the Netherlands ordered its construction in 1820, and it was completed in 1826.
It commemorates the location on the battlefield of Waterloo where a musket ball hit the shoulder of William
II of the Netherlands (the Prince of Orange) and knocked him from his horse during the battle. It is also a
memorial of the Battle of Quatre Bras, which had been fought two days earlier, on 16 June 1815.
The hill offers a vista of the battlefield, and is the anchor point of the associated museums and taverns in the
surrounding Lion's Hamlet. Visitors who pay a fee may climb up the Mound's 226 steps, which lead to the
statue and its surrounding overlook (where there are maps documenting the battle, along with observation
telescopes)
From an archaeological standpoint, Waterloo’s potential is enormous. For nearly 200 years, many relics from
the battlefield have been dispersed across the world in museums and private collections. During two massive
French infantry attacks and 12 cavalry charges by thousands of horsemen, countless helmets, belts, rifles,
pistols, bayonets, sabers, backpacks, saddles, and personal effects—not to mention the mangled remains of
both humans and horses—were trampled into the muddy earth.
These objects are far less valuable as keepsakes and collectors’ items than they are as pieces of the historical
puzzle of that fateful day. Over the past 25 years the excavation techniques and analytical methods of
battlefield archaeology—in places as diverse as the Little Bighorn site in Montana or the nearby World War I
trenches at Ypres (“In Flanders Field” May/June 2004)—have revealed new information about military
tactics, technology, and soldiers’ behavior in the thick of combat.

“There’s a good chance we will find more bones there,” reckons Brussels-based Bosquet, who discovered a
complete skeleton of a British soldier, with a musket ball in the ribs, during an excavation in 2012 under
what is now the Mémorial car park. The skeleton is on display in the Mémorial museum.

The immense Butte du Lion (“Lion’s Monticule”) on the battlefield of Waterloo. Model of the Lion’s Mound statue at Waterloo

HISTORY
This sculpture, created in 1822 by the Dutch artist Jean-François Van Geel, was the first step towards the The Waterloo visitors’ center, slated for demolition, stands next to a 1912 neoclassical building housing
a 360- degree panoramic painting of the battle that will remain at the site.
A view of the Lion’s Mound in Waterloo, Belgium.

massive monument, “The Lion Mound”, that now stands on the Waterloo battlefield. William I, King of the
Netherlands, decided to build a monument mainly to honour his son, the Prince of Orange, who had been one POST PERIOD (Influencing the visitors)
of the Allied commanders. As it took shape, however, it was reimagined as a celebration of the Dutch,
British, and German armies who fought.
Every year, thousands of visitors climb the 226 steps of the Lion's Mound overlooking the battlefield of
Waterloo – unaware that it “very probably” contains human remains, according to leading Belgian
The Lion’s Mound is built on the right flank of the Allied line, near where the Prince of Orange was shot and
archaeologist Dominique Bosquet.
injured during the Battle of Waterloo. This colossal construction, begun in 1822 and not finished until 1825,
required over ten million cubic feet of earth to be moved by hand. 2000 labourers, with 600 horses and
hundreds of carts, dug up the valley south of Waterloo for the task. In doing so, they destroyed the sunken
road which ran through the centre of the battlefield, and built over the ridge of Mont St. Jean which the
Allied army had fought to defend. Visiting Waterloo in 1827, the Duke of Wellington was said to have been
astonished by the complete transformation, exclaiming: “They have ruined my battlefield.”

Some objected to the desecration of the battlefield, others to disturbing the dead. The workers building the
mound unearthed hundreds of corpses from Waterloo. A Reverend Falconer, visiting in 1825, recorded: “I
picked up a human rib just disturbed from its resting place. [Soon] it was gone; someone more curious than
myself had secured it as a relic.”
Occasionally, the Battle of Waterloo is reenacted, and on those occasions, you would see hundreds upon
Atop the mound, which has 226 steps leading to the top, is the lion statue, based closely on Van Geel’s
hundreds of history enthusiasts in the battlefield, dressed up in uniforms, and completely equipped with
sculpture. The 4.4 metre high iron version had to be made in nine seperate pieces, cast in Liège and
rifles and other accessories of war, the field ringing with pistol shots and their shouts to bring down the
transported by sea and canal.
enemy.
There is a legend that the foundry melted down brass from cannons that the French had left on the
On regular days, though, it’s very peaceful there, with the enthusiasts climbing the 226 steps to the top where
battlefield, in order to cast the metal lion. In reality, the foundry made nine separate partial casts in iron and
the bronze lion is for a wonderful view of what used to be the battlefield.
assembled those components into one statue at the monument site.